Practitioner
A 'practitioner '''is a human who has "Awakened" and thus become involved in the world of Others and the supernatural. Doing so enables them to interact with the world in a different manner than normal people can at a cost. The typical means of doing so is a ritual where the person makes a contract with spirits that gives them the ability to tangle with supernatural elements at the cost of being unable to lie freely. Goblins call practitioners "The Wise" in that they are aware of things. Differences Between Practitioners and Normal People Practitioners, due to their awakening, have becoming something close to an Other.Being a practitioner inevitably meant losing a bit of your humanity and becoming a bit more ''Other. My new eyesight was a part of that, one step along what could be a long journey. - Excerpt from Damages 2.1 As practitioners aren't completely human anymore they lose the protections that the unaware have, but by sacrificing their ability to lie without consequences they are able to bend or manipulate the world and their karma to a greater extent than a normal person, who would be subjected to their whims but not able to build up a large surplus or negative of it. Practitioners can also interact with the Spirit World and see things with Sight that others can't perceive. They can manipulate connections as well as use different arts found in the world. Every act a practitioner does is monitored by Spirits and Others, thus symbolism and flair during actions will have a greater power, things like promises making normal people more inclined to go along with a line of suggestion or belief. Practitioners can learn to intuit other things, often relating to their practice, such as predicting death. Isadora has also stated that those who often reigned in the past and possessed divine blood or the blood of kings were similar to practitioners and thus had the ability to change the world. They do not necessarily have the same loyalty to their country that other people do; they would still serve in the armed forces or government if something conflicts with their families interests or prior oaths then their loyalty is questionable.The way I would approach it- The war is a backdrop. The battlefield is too volatile and doesn't lend itself to practice, and if practitioners help, it's either in negating the negative influences (Others in the trenches, the big efforts of opposing practitioners) or it's negated by the same. In reality, the true battle is one of ideology, allegiance, and secrecy. Practitioners are clandestine and they don't work that well together at the best of times, being ready to stab each other in the back, or having long-standing oaths or agreements that complicate their intervention. It's a fight to even reach the point where humanity can handle this on its own and expectations are low - your focus isn't on winning the war, it's on taking what feels like it might be an inevitable loss and keeping the real monsters out there from making it worse, exposing practitioners and/or opening the floodgates for horrible things to unfold. It's a fight for ideology, against a backdrop where tens of millions of lives are being lost. The various factions disagree on how this should be handled, can in no way even trust other American practitioners or Canadian practitioners, and these are the waters that must be navigated. If you tell the President that practice exists and hand him the keys to practice... maybe the augurs read the bird guts and they figure out that if this happens, the other side will do much the same, only they have a diabolist hidden among their secret societies and groups. - Wildbow on Reddit Types of Practitioners Practitioners are often categorized depending on their specialty: *Augur: Diviners the future. *Chronomancers: Manipulates time and Zeitgeists. *Dabblers: Users of rudimentary Magic of all kinds. *Diabolists: Conjurers of Demons. *Elementalists: Manipulators of the Elements. **Pyromancers: Users of Pyromancy. * Enchanters/Enchantresses: Manipulators of Connections. *Evangelists: Summoners of Angels. *Goblin Kings/Queens: Lords of Goblins. *Illusionists: Users of Illusions. *Scourges: Scavengers of Bogeymen. *Shamans: Users of Spirits. *Sorcerers: Exceptional users of all Magic. *Valkyries: Masters of Ghosts, Wraiths & Vestiges Category:Basic Information